by Daryl Banner
I frown at that closed door. “I belong here,” I mutter to myself, knowing damned well no one can hear me. “I’ve got what it takes.”
Also, I’m kind of sick of being told that.
Even if a tiny part of me knows Zak’s intention is to protect me. As was Lex’s when he spent my whole first night here schooling me about everyone and everything, including this Zak guy, whom he called an asshole I should avoid. Since that isn’t quite the vibe I got, I will just continue to presume there’s bad blood between them.
Deciding to put on a brave face, I turn and dive into the colorful noise bomb that is my apartment. On any other night of the week under any other set of circumstances, I might have been delighted to come home to a house party in progress. Tonight, I’m just praying there isn’t an orgy happening on my bed right now.
There isn’t an inch of space unoccupied in the whole apartment. I have to politely (as politely as one can manage by shouldering through a crowd) push my way to the kitchen, where I find Brett and a circle of guys laughing and shouting over each other trying to retell a story about some guy’s ex, who was apparently involved in a hilarious and humiliating sexual mishap at a frat house.
Brett catches my eye, then interrupts himself. “Connor! Bro! Just the guy I wanted to see!” After a quick round of introductions—where half of the names are slurred and I retain about two percent of the information thrown at me about who is who—Brett slaps a hand over my back and pulls me aside. “How was your Friday? Bro, sorry about the whole impromptu … party thing. I did warn you this could happen, right? I swear, it was just gonna be two guys, but then they brought two others, and four became eight, and eight became … this.”
“I thought you were supposed to meet up with the guy from Pogo’s,” I suddenly recall. “Wasn’t that tonight? You said the two of you were gonna go to an arcade or something.”
“Oh, yeah, uh …” Brett clumsily runs a hand through his hair, knocking off his hat. He doesn’t seem to notice. “Well, it turns out he’s … seeing someone. A comic from Grayson Point. Probably a real stand-up kinda guy.” He burps suddenly, then chuckles at his pun. “Just my luck, right?”
“I’m sorry … bro,” I say, giving his shoulder a rub. The term of endearment sounds awkward in my mouth, but I’m trying to comfort my roommate here. “You’ll find a guy whose heart is all yours.”
“I thought I had that back in college … well, before I dropped out,” he adds, then presses a fist to his mouth to suppress a burp. “I fell hard for this cutie in my frat named Skylar. Total babe. I looked out for him. He had my back. We were tight. He stole my heart, bro … stole every bit of it. I don’t think anyone’s ever gonna compare.”
I can see the pain in his eyes. There’s a deep, heartrending story there I’m not sure he’s ready to tell. Clearly so much of his life right now is built on suppressing how he feels about this Skylar fellow.
Better to put a bookmark in it for now. “You’re a good guy,” I tell my roommate sincerely. “I think you’re going to find someone just like you with a heart the size of the whole world.”
“Yeah, but he won’t be Skylar,” Brett mumbles sulkily. Then he lifts his eyes to mine, coming out of it. “Hey, don’t let my mood drag you down! You’ve got your Alan, and I’m happy for you! Oh, and he’s here, by the way.”
I blink. “He’s what?”
“Yeah! I half-invited him. Well, kinda. I mean, he was looking for you, and I told him you would be home soon, since it’s … uh, I don’t remember what I said, actually. What time is it?” He squints at his phone. “Fuck-o’clock, that’s what time. Shit, I think I left someone in my bedroom.” He staggers into the crowd, and I just sort of let him, stunned.
I look around at once, searching the crowd for Alan. Instead, I find that gorgeous-faced black man I met on my very first day here, standing by the window with a drink in his hand chatting with someone, maybe another tenant. He’s in a designer leather bomber jacket and jeans that, yet again, affirms my otherwise unsupported assumption that he’s a model who’s walked right off the pages of a fashion or fitness magazine—or both. The muscular man has style, a heaven-sent face, and …
He glances at me, as if sensing my staring. His beautiful eyes narrow irritably and his jaw tightens.
Okay, and he’s still not my biggest fan.
For whatever reason.
“I haven’t done anything to you, by the way,” I blurt suddenly. Maybe it’s the day I’ve had. Maybe it’s the craziness of this horribly-timed party when all I want is peace and comfort. Maybe it’s just that look he’s giving me, but I suddenly have to forego my usual compassion and simply vent. “You, on the other hand, scared away a perfectly nice teenager who was drawing the Sistine Chapel on our stoop. I mean, really, why are you discouraging a budding young artist from pursuing his passions? Shouldn’t we nurture young talent?”
His expression doesn’t change a bit from my brief tirade. I might as well have delivered a speech to a glorious marble statue. In fact, that is literally and figuratively what I probably just did. For all I know, the music is too loud to hear over anyway.
I abandon the living room, tired of everything—including myself—and push through the French doors into my room, which I find filled with no less than ten people, a few of them kicking back on my bed.
I stand there at the entrance of my room, and I can’t seem to move or say a word. I’m paralyzed to the floor, the limit of my patience at last reached. In fact, I might just stand right here and do absolutely nothing until someone or something pushes me over.
“Oh my goodness, guys, get the hint,” exclaims the timely voice of Lex as he plunges his way into my room, coming to my rescue. “This isn’t where the party is, fools. Out, out, all of you, come on!”
In a moment, my small room is cleared, and I am mercifully left alone.
Well, except for Lex. “You do realize who that was in the living room you chewed out on your little save-the-young-artists soapbox, right?”
It at once, and quite stupidly, clicks into place. “That gorgeous man is Dante??”
“Lord help you, you’ve poked the landlord bear. I do not want to be in your shoes. Or maybe I do. Let’s go out to the fire escape. I have to smoke, and your boy went out to get—”
“My boy? Oh, Alan!” I realize, cutting him off. “Where is he, exactly?”
“If you’d let me speak, you’d know. He went to get more beer, since you guys ran out. He’ll be back in a sec. Let me keep you company until then. What a sweetie … that Alan fellow of yours.” Lex smirks, then thrusts open my window and pokes a leg out onto the fire escape. “You got a lighter?”
“No.”
“Ugh, useless,” he teases me, then slides out.
I follow him, stepping out onto the fire escape for the first time. Leaning against the rusty railing, the pair of us stare down at the alley below where a pair of cats are playing tag with one another.
“Get used to it,” Lex says suddenly. “Brett’s place, no matter his roommate, is where all the party boys go. I can guarantee you—after the big letdown of his gamer-boy little-bro fantasy crush—poor horny Brett is going to angry-fuck two or three of your guests tonight, then forget it by the morning. You’ll have one hell of a mess to clean up after this weekend’s over, trust me. Oh, right, and yes, these things usually last the whole weekend. Phew, I won’t be envying you Monday morning.”
I sigh. My mind couldn’t be farther from this party. “I’m trying not to let this city crush me. I’m trying to be a good person. I’m trying so hard.”
“Oh, still torn up about Dante? Don’t worry. He seems like a toothy beast, but he’s really more of a gentle giant. Insanely forgiving. Well, not really.”
It wasn’t to Dante I was referring, but I let him assume so, since I’m not sure I’m ready to go into my whole thing with jerk-bag Jay yet. “Alright.”
“Y’know, this building was owned by Dante’s dad. He gave it to him … kinda lik
e a test-go, to see if he could manage his own building. I’d say Piazza Place is a hundred times better with Dante running it. No offense to Mr. Piazza, but phew, that man was a block of Italian ice.”
“Italian ice …?” I ask, quirking an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Total hard-assed Italian dad, sweet and loving black mom. Dante’s a perfect combination of their personalities and their good looks.” He puts a hand to his face and gives it a furious rub. “I’ve got to stop obsessing. Dante is totally my type and it is anguish living in this building with him, I fucking swear.”
I smile. “You don’t get all of that from meeting him. I should probably apologize later.”
“Don’t bother, it’s already forgotten. And yes, there is a lot to Dante you still don’t know. Phew, just a peep into his basement apartment will easily tell you that.”
I shoot Lex a suspicious look. “Why? What’s down there?”
“First things first.” He eyes me. “You tell me what the hell is eating you. I can read it all over your face, and it isn’t that raucous party in there.”
I bite my lip, glance back at my window and my mercifully empty room, then sigh, giving in. “I realized today that I hate my dream internship.”
“Uh-oh. Why?”
“It’s one of the other interns. He’s …”
“A stuck-up jizz-stain?”
I press my face into my palms for an answer.
Lex pats me on the back. “Alright, hon. Here’s what you do. Ready? Do you all eat together?”
I shake my head. “Nope,” I mumble into my hands. “Not even a lunch break. The most we do is drink coffee. In fact, I’m the designated gofer coffee bitch,” I explain, borrowing a term of endearment supplied to me by one of the downstairs interns.
“So … you get his coffee?”
“Yep.”
Lex pulls my face out of my hands and gives me an important look. “Then the solution’s simple. Drop a pill in his cup. Nothing teaches a lesson like making your enemy shit his brains out at work.” He kisses his fingers, in love with his evil scheme.
I gawk at him in horror. “I’d never …!”
“Oh, oh, oh! I’ve got an even better idea! Yes!” Lex grabs hold of my shoulders, his eyes alight. “I have a pill. An even better pill. And you’re going to put it in his coffee. I had a personal issue last year, it’s … it’s totally resolved itself, but uh … I thought I had a bit of erectile you-know-what-unction.”
I blink, not following.
“A boner pill,” he whispers. “Viagra.”
“No,” I state at once. “I’m not.”
“I’ve … Okay, fine, my problem isn’t resolved. I thought of it because I have one in my pocket. Right now. Left pocket. For tonight. In case one of Brett’s leftover-boys who looks like Dante in any way, shape, or form needs a desperation fuck.”
“Lex!”
“It’s yours.” He fishes it out and, with an insistent grasp of my hand, slaps the tiny pill on my palm and closes my fingers. “Boner pill. Right into his cup. Right into his tasty, innocent coffee. Does he take it black? I bet he takes it black with one single, pretentious shot of espresso, that fucker. I despise him already, and Connor, we’re gonna get him back together. Family, remember?”
“I can’t. Lex, I can’t. Seriously, I—”
“Do this for me and for all the poor, sad, and literally poor guys that your jack wagon intern has ever treated badly in his lifetime. All of us want you to do it. All of us need you to do it.”
“Lex …”
“Just let me be the devil on your shoulder. Do it for us, Connor, baby, booby.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Alan enter my room. With a glance, he notices us on the fire escape, then gives me the cutest smile before sitting on the edge of my bed, patiently waiting.
My heart sings a song just looking at him.
“He could ruin my career if he found out it was me,” I whisper. “This is a very bad idea, Lex.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he was planning to do that anyway,” Lex points out with a smirk, then nudges me. “Sometimes, two wrongs do make a right.”
17
My heart pounds.
Each time I swallow, my throat feels tighter.
I can’t stop bouncing my foot on the floor.
I’m honestly not sure I can go through with this.
“Your headlines are fine,” Brenda states as she thumbs through her tablet, inspecting our work. “I guess this layout will do. This one, too. Hmm. Nice work, Dave, but you’re thirty-three words over the max word count.”
I lay my hands on my thighs to wipe them of their sweat—and my palm grazes the tiny bump in my right pocket, reminding me of the evil scheme.
This doesn’t feel right. I shouldn’t do it.
“Connor, again with your adjectives.” She sighs as she lifts her chin to me. “Really, how will you be trusted to manage a team of content creators if you can’t cut out these flowery words of yours?”
“You may call them flowery,” mutters Jay, stiff-necked and smirking, “but to me, they’re more like weeds. Perhaps Connor thought he was applying for a position at Wales Weedly.”
I suppress a roll of my eyes and ignore him outright. “Sorry, Brenda. I will be more cognizant.”
“Cognizant,” mocks Jay under his breath, very much not suppressing a roll of his eyes.
My jaw tightens.
Perhaps my task won’t be so guilt-ridden after all.
An hour later leaves us to our own devices to finish up our writing projects. And right on cue, Jay makes a demonstrative performance of stretching, yawning, and then declaring, “I do think it’s time for a coffee run. Are we in need of a little boost?”
“I sure am,” states Dave like an eager puppy, sitting right next to him like a mini-Jay. Then he looks at me, completely foregoing the whole game of figuring out who’s going to do the coffee run. Spoiler alert: it’s always me. “Can you get me a mocha latté with a shot of espresso, please?”
Well, at least he said “please”. I rise from my chair and smile patiently at them. “Sure. You want the usual, Jay?” I ask him before he has the chance to order me, which startles him. “Black with a shot of espresso?”
Jay studies me for a while.
In fact, he studies me for way too long a while, causing my heart to jump. He knows something’s up.
The next instant, he lifts his chin. “Two shots.”
I breathe an inward sigh of relief. “Two shots,” I repeat, writing it down as Jay watches, proud of himself.
Yeah. He’s about to be really proud of himself.
Thirty very long minutes later, I’m on my way up the elevator from the first floor with a foam tray of four coffee orders. Every second I spent in the coffee line, my finger tapped against my pocket, feeling the tiny, innocent bump.
Who knew such a tiny, innocent bump could be capable of such impending chaos?
With a slip of my hand in and out of a pocket, the pill sits in my palm.
I swallow hard. My heart pounds. My throat is tight. Do this for all the people he’s hurt. Do it, Connor.
Hand shaking, I lift it over his drink, trembling.
Then, with a breath, I tilt my hand.
Plunk!
The elevator doors open too soon, startling me, and Brenda steps on from a lower floor. “Oh,” she says for a greeting, then frowns at my tray. “You’re being sent on coffee runs? We have interns for that downstairs, you know.”
I meet her eyes darkly. “I know.”
“Hmm.” She folds her hands over her waist, then takes a position at the back of the elevator as the doors slide shut and carry us up.
Nothing more is said. But with every floor we ascend, I swear I see my heartbeats rippling across the surface of the dark liquid of Jay’s coffee.
It’s the telltale heart of a boner pill.
Ripples across coffee.
Two shots of espresso.
And a secret ingredient.
>
The doors slide open. Brenda politely gestures for me to make my way first, surprisingly, and so I do. With each step down the hall, my heart crashes with mounting terror against my ribcage. It is a possibility I may pass out before getting there.
The next instant, I’m sitting down at the table doling out the coffees. When I set Jay’s in front of him, my eyes are glued to its surface with a sudden fear I hadn’t once given a thought to until just now: is the heat enough for that pill to dissolve, or could it suddenly float up to the surface, revealing itself?
What would I say?
What would I do?
“Are you quite alright?” asks Jay in a tone that suggests the haughty guy couldn’t care less if I was having a stroke right now.
And I very well might be. “Yeah,” I manage to reply, then sit down in my seat and pull my own laptop toward me.
Jay doesn’t sip it at first. He just takes the stick and slowly, slowly, slowly stirs his cup. For a wild instant, I have to wonder if he knows.
I don’t feel guilt-free anymore.
I’m terrified. I made a mistake. This is wrong. I shouldn’t have listened to Lex.
Jay licks his lips, studies his tablet lazily, and continues to stir, stir, stir with that tiny little stick.
I can’t stop staring, watching the fluid swirl.
Fuck me, I shouldn’t have done it.
“Would you use this photo for the layout,” he asks Dave, “or this one? I find his eyes to look … somewhat vague. Don’t we need a guiltier shot?”
“Yeah,” Dave agrees, since he’ll agree to any stupid thing Jay says. “Guiltier shot, definitely.”
“He looks absolutely guilty of nothing in this photo. It suggests nothing,” Jay decides, nodding at the photo on his layout—and still stirring, stirring, stirring that fucking cup of fucking coffee, two tiny shots of espresso, one big boner pill. For fuck’s sake.
I swallow—or try to, but my mouth has gone completely dry. I’m not breathing properly.
“What do you think, Connor?” asks Jay.
My eyes are twice the size of my face when I look at him. There’s sweat on my brow. “Sorry?”